I watched as Cindy was escorted out of the floor, her eyes wet with tears as she tried to keep it together. A tall, overweight man in a blue security uniform walked beside her. While she was looking at the ground, sniffling, he had a serious look on his face with a tinge of pity.

“Don’t worry about your belongings, Miss Walker,” he said. “We have your address on file and will have them mailed to you within the week.”

As if that would make her feel any better. I tried to make eye contact with her and give her a smile or a look of encouragement. It didn’t amount too much. She had her eyes glued to her feet. I could understand that. I don’t know that I would have wanted anyone to see me either after what she’d been through. Sighing, I looked over to my cubicle mate through a panel we had removed between our work stations that made a window of sorts. Yumi only looked back towards me and slowly mouthed the word, “Wow”.

Yumi is actually the best friend of my younger sister. They met at college and hit it off. I would see her throughout the years when my sister, Abby, brought her to family gatherings and other events. I helped her get a job here at Immersive Digital. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, cutting-edge technology and as one of the fastest growing companies in Denver, I thought, “What could go wrong?” Well, the answer was obvious, Emily Cohan. Emily Cohan was the new director of Marketing and Analytics. I’ve been working with her for a month and she is frightening.

My phone buzzed. Examining the app, I saw a message from Yumi. I looked through my makeshift cubicle window and rose an eyebrow. Her lips curled up in a half smile. Picking up my phone, I read the message.

“The Director is on a rampage. I hope there aren’t too many more casualties resulting from this bloodbath.”

I grimaced and nodded. “The Director” was Emily Cohan, our new boss. We should have known right away that something was very, very wrong when she introduced herself and told us to refer to her as Director Cohan. I mean, it’s the year 2047. Who does that? At the time, we just took it in stride. We figured it was to compensate for her age. She seemed to be in her early to mid twenties.

Emily Cohan was a descendant of the Cohan Empire. Well, I liked to think of it as the empire. One should always remember the classics. The only difference between Cohan Industries and the empire is instead of having an old man who could shoot lightning through his fingertips at the helm, Cohan industries was stuck with an old man who could shoot money through his fingertips. Charles Cohan was 90 years old and one of the elite trillionaires in the world. Leading the multi-trillion dollar international company, he was infamous. This larger-than-life trillionaire couldn’t keep it in his pants and had many children with different partners, who in turn had many kids. His massive wealth was spread through his descendants who were constantly entertaining the common folk with anything from philanthropic efforts to overdosing on the newest and latest drug.

I never would have thought that one of his granddaughters would end up at Immersive Digital in such a lowly position as a director of marketing and analytics. One thing was for sure, though, I would much rather have seen Emily in the virtual streams than as my boss.

A blinking light in my corner vision caught my attention. My latest VR glasses looked more like wrap-around sunglasses. I had picked up the top-of-the-line model recently and was pleased with its latest style. Grabbing them off the desk, I held them up to show Yumi the blinking light. She nodded, pushing back and twisting her swivel chair to face another corner of her desk.

Slipping on the glasses, I saw a sphere in the corner. Popping in a couple of ear buds to close out the noise, they quickly connected to the VR set. I reached up toward the sphere and flicked it to the center of my vision. A pleasant voice with a British accent that I enjoyed spoke to me. “Good Morning Cass. You have three new messages and one meeting invite. Would you like to open them? Rather than responding, since I was surrounded by others, I flicked my eyes up to the edge of my glasses, the universal eye motion for accepting a request.

Four boxes popped into my vision, 3 emails and one meeting invite. Quickly eyeballing the 3 emails, I jumped over to the calendar invite. I grabbed it and threw it at the center of my vision, causing the other boxes to disappear into my peripherals. It read, one-on-one with Emily Cohan at 11:00 am. Looking at the bottom right, I could see that was just 10 minutes away.

“Shit.” Maybe I wouldn’t make it out of this blood bath alive. I sighed, pulling the glasses from my face and setting them down. I rubbed my eyes. This wasn’t shaping up to be the day I hoped for.

Approaching the director’s office, I examined the grain of the heavy oak door. It seemed harsh. The patterns that traced the length of the door stood out against the light stain of the wood. Sighing, I steeled myself for the worst. This was likely me over reacting. I was a good employee, no, a great employee. Did Cindy give herself the same sort of pep talk before she was let go? My thoughts turned to the Director. What had I done to get on her bad side? Whatever it was, it was a mystery that may never be solved. I reached up and gently knocked on the door before cracking it open.

“Director Cohen, we still on for the one-on-one?” I said, secretly hoping she would just cancel the appointment. The director looked up from her desk, which was really more of a miniature conference table, her violet eyes meeting mine. I felt my breath catch. Despite her being crazy, she was still the most breathtakingly beautiful woman I had ever seen in person.

“Cass”, she said, smiling and standing. “It’s good to see you.” I steeled myself. Her red lips and perfect teeth reminded me more of a shark in that moment than the pretty 24-year-old lady who was inviting me to sit down and have a discussion with her.

“Please”, she continued. “Have a seat, make yourself comfortable, there is no need to call me Director when we are alone. Just Emily is fine.” I walked in front of her desk, pulling back the chair. Looking at her, she kept her shark like smile on display while she waited for me to take a seat. At that moment, I could have sworn she had more teeth than a normal person, no that wasn’t it. I was just to on edge. It was time for another pep talk.

Cass, you bad ass, you aren’t going to let her intimidate you. You were the quarterback of your, albeit small, high school team. You graduated with a solid 3.6 GPA from the prestigious school of Colorado State University. You have nothing to fear. You are a predator, not prey, a predator. Now act like the bad ass you are and…

“Cass, are you still with me? Is everything all right?” Emily asked. Her well manicured eyebrows raised at me.

I gave a slight cough. “Ahem.” I even raised my fist to my chest to make it more convincing. “Of course, I was just admiring what a nice office you have here.” I said, sitting down and looking around. Wait! Were those katanas she had on her shelf at the side of the room? What in the name of all that is holy?

I scooted my chair in, hitting my knee on one of the table legs. “Umph.” I let out, shaking the table. My eyes watered as I rubbed my knee. Thankfully, Emily didn’t seem to notice she had walked over to the katanas, grabbing one from the shelf. Small mercies. I think. She turned, pulling the katana out of the sheath in a smooth motion. Looking it over before turning back toward me with a full sized katana in her hand. She looked like she knew how to use it.

I looked around, trying to see if anyone else noticed what had just happened. Am I losing my mind here or did the girl just pull out a sword during a one-on-one? I pinched my leg to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It really felt like a weird dream right about now.

“Wow, that is, I mean that looks very dangerous…” I said as my comment sputtered to a stop. I mean, what was the right thing to say when your boss pulled out a katana in the middle of a one-on-one meeting at work? Maybe I could push myself through this situation with my good looks. It always seemed to work in high school. I smiled my most charming smile.

“This was a gift from my father. He has contacts in Japan, and this blade is the blade of a historically significant samurai. It was gifted to my father when he saved the owner of this blades’ life. My father gifted it to me when I graduated from Stanford, Suma cum laude.” At that moment, she seemed like a normal, 24-year-old girl admiring a prized possession. I felt my nerves calm. Maybe this would be alright after all.

Then she had to make it weird by throwing a handkerchief in the air. It floated for a split second before she slashed the fabric in two with her katana.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

My jaw dropped. Uhhh, that was both impressive and rather frightening. It was at that moment I knew I was very wrong. I wasn’t the predator here. I was the prey, definately the prey.

She returned the katana to its sheath and replaced it on the shelf while my mouth was collecting cobwebs. Turning back, she looked at me seriously, “Cass, I think we could be very good together, you and I.”

Word choice, I thought. Was she trying to make this confusing? “Umm..” I smoothly intoned, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

She smiled, the smile not quite reaching her eyes. We have very different backgrounds, you and I. What’s the best way to put this? She thought for a moment before continuing. “You are from the town of Wellington, are you not?”

“Yes.” I said, not sure where she was going with this.

She smiled. “Well, I’m from San Francisco.”

She turned toward me, her crisp suit complimentary to her figure. “You grew up in a small agricultural town, raising wheat and milking cows while I was under the tutelage of the best my family has to offer.”

She paused for a moment, as if in thought. “While we are from different ends of the social spectrum, we both understand the meaning of hard work, do we not?”

I nodded dumbly, stunned by the bizarrely offensive conversation that we were having. Wait! I thought to myself. Do I tell her that I haven’t farmed a day in my life and both of my parents were software developers with master's degrees? Nope, I don’t. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it is to not correct the scary shark lady with a katana.

“Well”, she continued. I’m here to transform this company. I need some good soldiers on my side that I know can follow orders. “You can follow orders, can’t you, Cass?” Still in shock over the conversation, I nodded, dumbly. In all fairness, I’m pretty sure that my brain hadn’t caught up with the current conversation. I wasn’t sure the synapses of my brain were firing properly at this point.

“I’ve been watching you, Cass”, she said. I sighed inwardly. Why had I never heard those words until now? A small part of me was happy to hear them. “Don’t fall for it”, I told myself. “This is clearly a trap.”

“I think that you are one of the key figures in the office. The women, respect and feel comfortable with you. The men admire you. If I were to guess, most of them would follow your guidance.”

“Oh, well, thanks. But I think you might be exaggerating a bit.” I said.

Her violet eyes turned hard and cold in that moment. “Let me cut to the center of the issue, Cass.”

I gulped at the abrupt change.

“As long as you are here, they will look to you. When a new initiative is introduced, they observe you to see how you respond. They follow your cues, and that is a problem for me, because I need them to follow my cues.”

“Now, if you and I were partners, and you followed my instructions to the letter, I could see this being a very beneficial relationship for both of us.” She smiled sweetly, sitting on the edge of her desk looking down at me.

By this time, my brain had slowly caught up with the conversation, mostly. “Ummm… I’m not sure that would be a true partnership.” I said in a low voice. Crap, did I just say that out loud?

Ah, she was starting to irritate me, and with anger came courage.

“Hmmm….” She said, looking at me closely. “If you aren’t working with me, then you are working against me, Cass. That would be unfortunate, because if you are working against me, it will force me to make your life here a living hell. That is until I dig up enough dirty information on you to see you out of the company.” She delivered the line while maintaining her sweet smile.

The room was silent for a moment. All I could hear was the forced air being pushed through the vents in the room. Was it just me or was it cold in here? I will admit I started fidgeting a bit, but who could blame me? My heart pounded.

She must have taken my silence as assent because her mood seemed to switch again. “Are you sure we can’t work together?” she was still looking down on me while sitting on the side of the desk. I’m not sure how she did it, but she asked me a question sweetly while looking down on me. I could sense the falseness in her voice and her disdain. The more I talked to this lady, the more I grew to despise her.

I forced a smile, though I’m sure it wasn’t convincing. I wasn’t very good at these types of conversations, so I went with my honest thoughts. “I won’t be happy in an environment without autonomy.” I said. “I’m happy to work with you for the good of the team, but I think diversity of thought and open discussion is important to our team’s success.”

Emily smiled, “And what makes you qualified to know what is good for the team?”

I tried to think of a response, but wasn’t fast enough. “Listen, Cass, I can see we won’t be able to work together, so this will be my final offer. I can give anyone who isn’t on board with the new direction our department four months’ severance package. That means four months of full pay.” I tried not to roll my eyes. Does she seriously think I don’t know what a severance package is?

“That is the best you will get, otherwise you and I are enemies and from today on I will bring the considerable resources of my family to make sure that there isn’t a smidgen of you to scrape from this floor.” She pointed to the floor to emphasize her point.

Dramatic, I thought. Though she seemed serious and I kind of believed her.

“The way they expel you from the company is of no concern to me. But by giving the right incentives and applying leverage to the right people, your exit will be certain, and you will leave the company with nothing. The worst-case scenario is that your reputation will be ruined, and no other company will consider hiring you.”

This wasn’t looking good for me. What should I do? She had already cut a good part of the team, and I needed money. I had made decent money, but between my school debt, expensive rent, and my new pair of expensive VRs, I was living paycheck to paycheck. I’d paid off the rest of my school loan. I regretted that decision now.

My stomach bubbled with anxiety. I tried not to let it show, but she probably read me like a book based on her expression. With such disdain, she was really pissing me off, but I didn’t have many options here. I sighed. I wasn’t sure I enjoyed working here anymore with the turn the company had taken. Cindy had been a friend of mine, as had many others who had been let go in the past month.

I looked over to the area where Yumi and the remainder of my team sat. I thought for a moment before I turned back to her.

“Okay, I will take the severance.” A part of me felt like I was giving in, giving up, throwing in the towel before I even got to the fight, but I was strapped for cash, and I didn’t doubt she would find a way to push me out of the company in less than a month. Her expression said it all. Disdain. This was exactly what she wanted. My blood boiled.

She had the paperwork ready. We quickly reviewed the paperwork and then I signed. It contained the expected verbiage. I was not to complain, spread company information, secrets, rumours, or any negative information about the company. If I did, I would lose the severance. The entire time we went through it, she had a smug look on her face like she had just won some sort of contest.

I really needed to get out of this room. This woman was infuriating. When we finished the final document, I closed the file and stood up, ready to leave. I wasn’t going to ask permission, besides if I stayed any longer, I would do something I would regret.

Emily called out as I headed to the door, “You need to wait here for security to escort you out.” The whole meeting had made me feel reckless, and I said something I never would have said, “Give it a rest princess, I’m just grabbing my VRs, don’t want them damaged, I’ll let myself out. I walked out of her office, closing the door behind me, leaving her fuming. She looked like she was about to storm at and skewer me, but she didn’t. I strode to my desk. I knew the comment was foolish.

If I had to guess, she was notifying security, so I only had a couple minutes to get out of here on my own terms before the big guys in the blue shirts took control of the situation. It wasn’t much, but I felt walking out of my own accord was a small act of defiance and kept my dignity intact. I went over to my desk, placing my VRs on my face. I quickly grabbed a few items that I didn’t trust anyone with. Most important was my lucky copper pendant.

It was something my mother had given to me in high school when my nerves were on edge before a game. The copper pendant had a cross with a serpent that snaked around it. I had always thought it looked cool as the serpent, looked more like a dragon than a snake. I put it over my neck, then started walking for the stairs. I could see that the blue uniform security guard had just exited the elevator. That was my cue to leave.

Right about that time, the Director’s face appeared in my mind. It was like she was laughing at me. Everything had gone according to her plan. I was just one more pawn she erased from the board, and I hadn’t even put up a fight.

“Screw it!” I said out loud, attracting the attention of a few nearby coworkers. I was feeling reckless. I moved my VRs to set on the top of my head. I wanted Emily to see my eyes for what I did next. The security guard was still just getting out of the elevator. If I was going to act, I had to act now.

I turned to see Yumi, who was watching me, clearly curious to know what was going on. I gave her a wink, then walked back over to Director Cohan’s office. I only had a short time before the security boy got here and things got awkward. I flung her door open, then did something I’d never done before to any woman.

Emily turned, an irritated expression on her face that only transformed into something more sinister when she saw who was at her door. I gave her my biggest grin, then I flipped her off, blew her a kiss and mooned her. Her face began to turn red, and she spluttered. Speechless, I thought to myself, in satisfaction. Before she could say anything, I shut the door, then with a serious expression on my face, I ran over to the security guard. This was a newer guy. “Hey man, you the guard Director Cohan called?”

“Yes,”

“Yeah, she told me to come find you and send you to her office. I think she needs you to escort someone from the building. She looks pretty mad. I would hurry.”

He gave me a concerned look. “Thanks for the tip, he said before rushing to her office. I could see Yumi and a couple of coworkers that had seen part of the show. They looked shocked, just staring at me.

The elevator going down was just opening, letting a few people out. As the guard got closer to her office, she opened the door with a furious expression on her face. I caught her pointing at me. I smiled and waved at her before slipping into the elevator and letting the door close.

I beamed as the elevator lowered. The furious look on her face warmed my soul. However, it wasn’t long before another thought surfaced. I had made a big mistake.